Star Wars Rebels: When Hope Is Lost

Chapter 36: Light and Dark

"Are you sure about this?" Kanan asked Ahsoka for the hundredth time.

"Kanan, do you ever trust anyone?" she asked, sighing.

Kanan thought about this for a moment. "I trust Hera."

She gave him a look and he broke out into a small, nervous smile. "Kidding, kidding. I'm sorry, Ahsoka. I'm just extremely nervous about this. Ezra thinks we're all dead! This obviously isn't going to be a walk in the park. Rescuing the kid is one thing, to convince him that we're alive and WEREN'T bloodily executed is another. And we're not sure if he's just been touched by the dark side or...." Kanan swallowed, not wanting to entertain the possibility of Ezra having turned to the dark side. "Or if he's on it fully." He had told about Ahsoka about the glimpses of Ezra's emotions that he had gotten through the Force, and about how Ezra had been hallucinated to believe that the rebels were dead.

"Kanan. What did the Jedi always tell you to do?"

"Many things. Which one?" he cocked his head, half serious and half joking.

"What were you always told to do in battle or before a mission, when there were tons of distractions?"

Kanan sighed. "Focus." He stretched out his hand, felt the Force all around, glowing, pulsing, living–it was inside of every living thing aboard the Star Destroyer, human or not. Beyond that; more life. More beings and animals and plants thrived with the Force. Some were stronger in it than others, some could not feel it at all.

But without the Force, life did not exist.

"The Force surrounds us, penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together." That was what he had told Ezra, when he had asked what the Force was.

How much he wished he could go back to those simple days.

"We're almost there," Ahsoka's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and back into reality. His hand moved to his side, gripping his holster tightly with Rex's blaster inside, knuckles going white. "I think he's in the bridge."

"Ok. Let's hope that the other Imperials there aren't too hostile towards us. Ready?"

"Ready."

The two Jedi stopped at a large durasteel door. This type of door normally would have slid open automatically, but it was blocked by blast doors and over-rided. Ahsoka tried the manual opening switch, but was denied access.

"Guess we'll have to cut our way through," Kanan said as he unsheathed his lightsaber and plowed it into the metal.

Red lights started to shine and alarms began to blare. The Jedi looked at each other, not entirely surprised.

"I guess that's our cue to hurry up," Ahsoka said with a slight smile.

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"What's going on?" Darth Malice strode onto the bridge from his nearby quarters, anger and uncertainty flowing through the Force inside of him.

"Rebel attack, sir," the lieutenant replied, slightly scared of the figure with the creepy yellow eyes, though he was smaller than herself. "Shutting blast doors."

Darth Malice whirled around as he heard the slam of metal sheets covering the entrance on both sides. "The rebels are dead."

"Uh.... pardon, sir?"

"I said, the rebels are dead! There is no attack! What are you doing?" Darth Malice reached for the controls. "You are incompetent! How could you be so naive and stupid as to think they were alive? I watched their executions myself!"